Fallout 4's lack of rebuilding

[Twicklerm]

Besides the terrible dialogue system, lack of role playing, and voiced protagonist the lack of an attempt at building ACTUAL civilizations bugs me to no end.

For example, Vault city in Fallout 2 was a community built after the great war and managed to create a functioning society with laws, a military, leadership, trade and buildings that aren't made out of 200 year old pieces of ply wood and and scrap metal. Granted, they had the help of the GECK and likely influence from the vault's systems and plenty of pre war tech.

Not a good example? fair enough.

The NCR, established under the leadership of Tandi and Aradesh managed to create a functioning nation out of local towns and villages. The NCR not only makes an effort to restore pre war structures and weapons, but actively create new things. An example of this would be the mining projects at quarry junction, and the restoration of the rail system. furthermore they actually have a military, leadership, trade, and an actual system of crime and punishment (NCRCF)

The same thing is true for the legion to an extent, as well as the enclave, western brotherhood, khans, and even the raider gangs in FO1,2,NV make sense and have a reasonable amount of context and naturally formed hierarchy.

In the past 200+ years all of these factions (written by intelligent people) have made reasonably believable societies in the literally 8-9 generations since the war. Hell, even the Tribals in Arroyo, and in the northern passage aren't living in squalor and anarchy after 200 years.


So, whats my point? In fallout 4 as well as FO3 there hasn't been any tangible attempt to not live in squalor and in shit cover shacks. thats right, people living in southern California, Nevada, and parts of mexico and Utah (places considered inhospitable by our standards and with barely any access to water, farm land and temperatures below 100 degrees) are in better shape than people who live in Boston. I'm willing to give The capital wasteland a pass because in the lore it states that the entire place is basically uninhabitable and theres no drinking water or farm land available. However i cant ignore the fact that the commonwealth a place demonstrated to have EXCELLENT farming conditions considering you find wild fruits growing every ten feet, and a major mechanic of the game includes farming and there is zero mention of crop failure or food shortage, at least to my knowledge.

So, I ask you, Is the lack of civilization in FO4 (save for some shanty towns and WhaCkY aNd CoOl Diamond city) a byproduct of an actual in game lore reason or just lazy/incompetent writing on the part of Bethesda?

 

[FalloutIsMyDrug]

I think the best excuse that I've heard is that the Institute have either deliberately or accidentally wiped out settlements that get too large. University Point was a thriving town that was slaughtered by Institute synths. The Institute is also to blame for the Super Mutants in the Commonwealth, which are a major threat to civilization.

It's not very good justification, and mostly just headcanon, but hopefully this helps. You shouldn't try to justify Bethesda's shortcomings, because they really don't care about their own Fallout universe.

 

[lolpop109]

Defintly should of been more towns escpacily as what the instuite was builded as having. It sounds from zimmer tha the instuite as using synths to build town ect. It sounded like the common wealth was going to be a place we their where tons of technogly advancemens al also civilain life had continued. I'd thought their be atleast 4 big settlements with smaller ones. However thats not the case at all. All we got is one massive settlement diamound city and that was all. I mean you got good neighbour but thats actually kinda small so yeah I dunno

 

[TorontoReign]

You shouldn't try to justify Bethesda's shortcomings, because they really don't care about their own Fallout universe.

Pretty much this. They don't give a shit. Period. So why should you?

 

[Tom Bishop]

It's not even lazy/incompetent writing so much as it is lack of interest from Bethesda. They don't want to create a world of burgeoning civilizations rife with political intrigue and social commentary; they want to create a wacky post-apocalyptic world driven mostly by action. Which could work, but then why do they feel the need to keep setting these games later and later chronologically? It would make so much more sense if they set their games before the events of F1.

 

[SarcasticGoodGuy]

nah man they have diamond city which is c00l

diamond city has a noodle shop, and vault shitty doesn't

rekt

 

[MercenarySnake]

Can you just imagine when they have the games set to say 1,000 years later and people are still living in worn down rotting shacks while civilization is still the same as it was in Fallout 3 and 4? The Brotherhood of Steel is a full blown army and the super mutants somehow made it all the way to the new location because the FEV was shared with yet again another vault or another pointless faction recreated the same fucking thing like the Institute. When it happens will the Bethestards finally see how ridiculous it is to defend any of this shit and not say stupid shit like "Civilization can't change as quickly as 1,000 years hur dur"?

 

[Chromevod]

I'm willing to give The capital wasteland a pass because in the lore it states that the entire place is basically uninhabitable and theres no drinking water or farm land available.

The thing is, I'm not. The capital wasteland being as inhospitable as it is, no one would stay. Just the lack of a clean water source would mean no one would willingly stay there. In fact, it would be in their best interest to leave as soon as they could and take a chance at finding somewhere better. Even Fallout 3's story emphasized the importance of drinkable water. People aren't stupid enough to establish a permanent settlement where surviving is untenable.

 

[Jubal Quintus]

Chromevod is right, if it was as inhospitable as all that, it'd be a mythic place a la The Glow. People would travel there, maybe some would make it back to tell stories, but no one would be trying to build a town there.

 

[CT Phipps]

I don't want to play in something which isn't a scrapyard collection of places. Vault City and the Institute are nice exceptions but Fallout should always be set in ruins. It's why I agree with Chris Avellone that we either have to stop advancing the timeline or nuke the world again.

Either that or establish that humanity is never going to recover, which would be a good thing.

The thing is, I'm not. The capital wasteland being as inhospitable as it is, no one would stay. Just the lack of a clean water source would mean no one would willingly stay there. In fact, it would be in their best interest to leave as soon as they could and take a chance at finding somewhere better. Even Fallout 3's story emphasized the importance of drinkable water. People aren't stupid enough to establish a permanent settlement where surviving is untenable.

People live in the Sahara Desert.

 

[Jubal Quintus]

The first settlement encountered in the first Fallout game was built after the fall and does not use scrap or existing structures for it's construction. Also, the people who live in the Sahara live near water sources. You are pretty much making Chromevod's argument for them.

 

[Chromevod]

People live in the Sahara Desert.

The Sahara Desert is very, very different from the radioactive pit depicted in Fallout 3. The Sahara has the Nile River, the Niger River, aquifers, the oases said aquifers form, and one of its lakes even has drinkable water. These are the sorts of places that people live in. Modern technology can move water to places otherwise inhospitable, but in situations where there is no societal infrastructure to support such a community, they would be unlikely to form in the first place.

 

[CT Phipps]

The Sahara Desert is very, very different from the radioactive pit depicted in Fallout 3. The Sahara has the Nile River, the Niger River, aquifers, the oases said aquifers form, and one of its lakes even has drinkable water. These are the sorts of places that people live in. Modern technology can move water to places otherwise inhospitable, but in situations where there is no societal infrastructure to support such a community, they would be unlikely to form in the first place.

Well, it's a coastal area where the regularly tainted water (by which we mean the ocean) can be purified in Rivet City and there's also rain. The big issue of the Capital Wasteland is the largest of the sources of water in the region, a certain river, is tainted irrecoverably.

Presumably, the communities of the CW have access to enough water to survive (and we see in both major communities they do have access to water) but not ABUNDANT levels of water.

 

[Chromevod]

Rivet City is pretty much the only place I can accept having a way to purify enough water to sustain a community for any amount of time, due to a water filtration system being pretty standard on aircraft carriers.

The gripes come with places like Megaton. By the time of Fallout 3 they're shown having a water purifier, albeit a failing one. Yet the settlement is said to have been formed in the immediate aftermath of the Great War, with people hiding in the crater. My issue is that they then stayed in the crater afterwards, instead of going to Rivet City. If Rivet City perhaps turned them away, they would have left the Capital Wasteland as soon as it was possible to do so. Not to mention the raider population. They may be able to steal water from travelers, but not in enough quantity to sustain the entire band. I also doubt, water being as precious as it is, that travelers would carry any more than is absolutely needed to just not die of dehydration moving from place to place.

If Fallout 3 was placed earlier in the timeline, a lot of this would be more forgivable. My suspension of disbelief goes out the window with the game being two centuries after the Great War, and yet the water issue still has not been sorted out to an adequate degree. These aren't even new settlements, they're 200 year old settlements and yet people have been dragging their heels on a clean, reliable source of water. If it's really that difficult, no one would have stuck around long enough to care.

 

[Zerginfestor]

Fallout 4's civilization doesn't make any fucking sense. Boston's city would literally collapse into a massive pile of dust, rubble, and rebar from the lack of maintenance, only somehow held together by nature going full on apeshit within the span of 50 years of no one trying to keep nature at bay or repairing the buildings. However, "dat radiation domino effect" Fallout's universe has makes Nature harder to adapt to it, so then bears the question: How the fuck are the buildings still standing, ESPECIALLY the fucking Towers in the game? And then there's Diamond City and the other settlements in the city area...why? Why set up near the heart of raiders, super mutants, and all other shit out there, it would've been better if they set up shop in the outer regions of the city like Covenant. You know, AWAY from the danger, and building their own fucking wall out of scrap/concrete.


The fact that the only decent community early in the game for the player to witness is literally over half the distance of the fucking map speaks volumes of the content (or LACK of, I should say) of the game.

At least New Vegas has a very good reason why buildings in New Vegas' region are still standing: Mr. House. Mr. House shot down as many nukes as he could before his systems were fried, and managed to save inner Vegas and the outer region (now known as Freeside), and maintained the locations with Securitrons, though eventually pulled back from Freeside when everyone there said "NO" to his plan, thus when you enter Freeside, it looks like absolute shit, since no one is fixing the buildings anymore.

 

[CT Phipps]

Rivet City is pretty much the only place I can accept having a way to purify enough water to sustain a community for any amount of time, due to a water filtration system being pretty standard on aircraft carriers.

Rivet City is actually a fairly new settlement while Megaton is a very old settlement. Also, we have no idea how old the Children of Atom are. They could have been the ones to found Megaton and nonbelievers came to live there because they had a sustainable community.

If Fallout 3 was placed earlier in the timeline, a lot of this would be more forgivable. My suspension of disbelief goes out the window with the game being two centuries after the Great War, and yet the water issue still has not been sorted out to an adequate degree. These aren't even new settlements, they're 200 year old settlements and yet people have been dragging their heels on a clean, reliable source of water. If it's really that difficult, no one would have stuck around long enough to care.

That's assuming the environment outside of the Capital Wasteland is better. That's assuming the locals aren't comfortable with their existing home. That's assuming they have the survival materials to navigate. Bluntly, the people of the Capital Wasteland seem to have enough water to live, they just don't have enough water to GROW and be plentiful. They have to manage their water carefully.

Fallout 4's civilization doesn't make any fucking sense. Boston's city would literally collapse into a massive pile of dust, rubble, and rebar from the lack of maintenance, only somehow held together by nature going full on apeshit within the span of 50 years of no one trying to keep nature at bay or repairing the buildings. However, "dat radiation domino effect" Fallout's universe has makes Nature harder to adapt to it, so then bears the question: How the fuck are the buildings still standing, ESPECIALLY the fucking Towers in the game? And then there's Diamond City and the other settlements in the city area...why? Why set up near the heart of raiders, super mutants, and all other shit out there, it would've been better if they set up shop in the outer regions of the city like Covenant. You know, AWAY from the danger, and building their own fucking wall out of scrap/concrete.

The fact that the only decent community early in the game for the player to witness is literally over half the distance of the fucking map speaks volumes of the content (or LACK of, I should say) of the game.

At least New Vegas has a very good reason why buildings in New Vegas' region are still standing: Mr. House. Mr. House shot down as many nukes as he could before his systems were fried, and managed to save inner Vegas and the outer region (now known as Freeside), and maintained the locations with Securitrons, though eventually pulled back from Freeside when everyone there said "NO" to his plan, thus when you enter Freeside, it looks like absolute shit, since no one is fixing the buildings anymore.

Fallout 3 said the United States used their super technology to harden their buildings to be immune to nuclear bombardment as best they could. Which is perhaps why the Chinese made use of neutron bombs (high radiation, low explosion) versus simply destroying everything.

 

[Jogre]

Fallout 3 said the United States used their super technology to harden their buildings to be immune to nuclear bombardment as best they could. Which is perhaps why the Chinese made use of neutron bombs (high radiation, low explosion) versus simply destroying everything.

If that's the case, then how come the Las Angeles Boneyard was mentioned to have nothing but the skeleton of buildings in FO1 and 2.

You'd think if they had building-hardening technology, that maybe they'd use it in LA, one of the wealthiest cities in the world.

 

[CT Phipps]

If that's the case, then how come the Las Angeles Boneyard was mentioned to have nothing but the skeleton of buildings in FO1 and 2.

You'd think if they had building-hardening technology, that maybe they'd use it in LA, one of the wealthiest cities in the world.

The United States didn't get to choose the time and place of nuclear war either. If they had, the Enclave would have been able to evacuate themselves into space rather than getting stuck on an oil rig in the middle of the Pacific. They could have had time to harden Washington D.C., Boston, and a few other cities but not get around to the Boneyard.

Heck, Washington D.C. isn't THAT intact as the only buildings still standing are important government ones and a handful of others.

 

[Illuminati Confirmed!]

Rivet City is actually a fairly new settlement while Megaton is a very old settlement. Also, we have no idea how old the Children of Atom are. They could have been the ones to found Megaton and nonbelievers came to live there because they had a sustainable community.

The founders of Megaton tried to gain access to Vault 101 shortly after the bombs fell. Having failed, they took cover in the crater. How come that clean water was never an issue back then? We're talking enough radiation to make every cow in the known world grow a second head, yet a group of people manage to survive just by taking cover in a hole?

That's assuming the environment outside of the Capital Wasteland is better. That's assuming the locals aren't comfortable with their existing home. That's assuming they have the survival materials to navigate. Bluntly, the people of the Capital Wasteland seem to have enough water to live, they just don't have enough water to GROW and be plentiful. They have to manage their water carefully.

Point Lookout clearly shows that the environment outside the Capital Wasteland is better. Comfortable with their existing home? Where raiders and super mutants outnumber civilized folk twenty to one? Where they are unable to grow and have to ration their water carefully? Maybe a few rugged survivalists would stick around (and that's only if there was anything of value actually in the wasteland), but that's not what your average Fallout 3 NPC is (unless we include raiders, but then the game really doesn't make sense, as that many raiders could only be sustained by a large enough number of victims).

As far as survival materials to navigate go, they had enough means of navigation to drag all the scrap from a nearby airport to Megaton and use it as construction material. Means of navigation clearly exist, as Tenpenny and Moriarty both have foreign accents implying that they or their parents crossed the Atlantic.

No matter how hard you try, there is just no way of making the Fallout 3 setting make sense.

 

[CT Phipps]

The founders of Megaton tried to gain access to Vault 101 shortly after the bombs fell. Having failed, they took cover in the crater. How come that clean water was never an issue back then? We're talking enough radiation to make every cow in the known world grow a second head, yet a group of people manage to survive just by taking cover in a hole?

I can actually de-irradiate water with a plastic bag and a bunch of sand. It's not that difficult to do with radiation or even any other substance. Distillation is a process which has been well known since forever. Megaton would be able to survive just by collecting water from the crater and purifying it (presuming the bomb wasn't leaking yet). As for the Brahmin, presumably they're descended from a single or multiple radiation resistant cows versus all being transformed by magic--even in the unrealistic way which radiation works.

Point Lookout clearly shows that the environment outside the Capital Wasteland is better. Comfortable with their existing home? Where raiders and super mutants outnumber civilized folk twenty to one? Where they are unable to grow and have to ration their water carefully? Maybe a few rugged survivalists would stick around (and that's only if there was anything of value actually in the wasteland), but that's not what your average Fallout 3 NPC is (unless we include raiders, but then the game really doesn't make sense, as that many raiders could only be sustained by a large enough number of victims).

Point Lookout is OCCUPIED, though, which is the traditional reason why people can't just move to a new location. Specifically, it's occupied by a bunch of super-mutant tough local mutants. It's possible the Capital Wasteland has a bunch of people who don't want any newcomers.

As for Raiders, there's a good theory the Raiders of the CW may have wiped out other settlements we haven't seen and/or be the descendants of the Vaults which warped them into bloodthirsty lunatics.